Long Words Quotes

• The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Real, Political Language

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

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• One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Dressing Up, Clothes

  Stephen King (2002). “On Writing”, p.110, Simon and Schuster

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• Never use a long word where a short one will do.

  George Orwell

  Long, Use, Simile

  George Orwell (1961). “Collected essays”

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• How come abbreviated is such a long word?

  Steven Wright

  Funny, Humor, Long

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• His heart; some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Heart, Long, Dying

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• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

  George Orwell

  Cutting, Thinking, Passive Voice

  George Orwell (1953). “Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays”

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• Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either!

  Lewis Carroll

  Believe, Speak English, Long

  Lewis Carroll (2015). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: That CUPCAKE was off her head!”, p.23, Oldcastle Books

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• I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Long, Purpose, Use

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Medical Essays”, p.302, Reprint Services Corporation

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• It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

  William Safire

  Writing, Long, Use

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• I was just asking Chad [Myers], how can you get a volcano in Iceland? Isn't it too- when you think of a volcano, you think of Hawaii and long words like that. You don't think of Iceland.You think it's too cold to have a volcano there.

  Rick Sanchez

  Thinking, Volcanoes, Iceland

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• Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

  William Safire

  Editing, Long, Sound

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• There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose." Where?" In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.

  Roald Dahl

  Wise, Clever, Memories

  Roald Dahl (1991). “Collected Stories”, Everyman's Library

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• When we asked Pooh what the opposite of an Introduction was, he said "The what of a what?" which didn't help us as much as we had hoped, but luckily Owl kept his head and told us that the Opposite of an Introduction, my dear Pooh, was a Contradiction; and, as he is very good at long words, I am sure that that's what it is.

  A. A. Milne

  Opposites, Long, Owl

  Milne, George, Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander), Shepard, Ernest H. (1977). “The World of Pooh : the Complete Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner”, McClelland and Stewart, 1989

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• For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me.

  A. A. Milne

  Writing, Editing, Long

  Winnie-the-Pooh ch. 4 (1926)

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• There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach "a healthy skepticism." They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific.

  Anthony Standen

  Teacher, Science, Thinking

  Anthony Standen (1950). “Science is a sacred cow”

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• Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?

  Martin Freeman

  Stupid, Ignorance, Long

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Well,” said Owl, “the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.” “What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?” said Pooh. “For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.

  A. A. Milne

  Mean, Long, Owl

  Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) ch. 4

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• I like 'pencil-necked weasel'. It has 'pencil' in it. Pencils are good things. You can draw or write things with pencils. I think it's what you call someone when you're worried that using a long word like 'intellectual' may have too many syllables. It's not something that people who have serious, important things to say call other people.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Thinking, Long

  "Neil Gaiman hits back at US politician's theft accusation" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. May 5, 2011.

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• It's not unsporting to thrash a cowardly cad,' said Simmons. 'Everyone knows you don't fight like a gentleman.' 'That might be called an oxymoron,' Ramses said. 'Oh--sorry. Bad form to use long words. Look it up when you get home.' The poor devil didn't know how to fight, like a gentleman or otherwise.

  Barbara Mertz

  Sorry, Home, Fighting

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• What are letters?” “Kinda like mediaglyphics except they’re all black, and they’re tiny, they don’t move, they’re old and boring and really hard to read. But you can use ’em to make short words for long words.

  Neal Stephenson

  Moving, Long, Black

  Neal Stephenson (2003). “The Diamond Age”, p.46, Spectra

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• As someone who sends texts messages more or less non-stop, I enjoy one particular aspect of texting more than anything else: that it is possible to sit in a crowded railway carriage laboriously spelling out quite long words in full, and using an enormous amount of punctuation, without anyone being aware of how outrageously subversive I am being.

  Lynne Truss

  Long, Messages, Texting

  "The joy of text" by Will Self, Lynne Truss, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2008.

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• IF is a very long word in Formula One; in fact, IF is F1 spelled backwards.

  Murray Walker

  Long, Racing, Facts

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• Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words.

  Jonathan Dimbleby

  Names, Long, Andrew

  "Dimbleby lets rip at BBC 'anoraks'" by Jason Deans, www.theguardian.com. January 10, 2003.

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• A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Latin, Real

  George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison (2001). “Orwell and politics: Animal farm in the context of essays, reviews and letters selected from the complete works of George Orwell”, Penguin Modern Classics

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• The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Long, Secret

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